Yahoo News Living with Yourself star Aisling Bea admits she had hesitations about the Netflix series
Living with Yourself doesn't drop on Netflix until October 18, but there's already a solid buzz building around the original series. Oh, the power of Paul Rudd.
The Marvel star is coming to the streaming platform for the new eight-part comedy, starring opposite, well, himself.
Marking Rudd's first leading role in a television series, Living with Yourself will introduce Miles, a man who is struggling in life, as he undergoes a novel spa treatment that promises to make him a better person, only to end up getting himself cloned.
Yes, it is as barking as it sounds.
Also starring as his wife is This Way Up's brilliant Aisling Bea. But, before you start worrying that she's going to be pigeon-holed into the tired 'girlfriend' trope, Bea has made it very clear that she would have probably turned the role down if that had been the case.
During a recent interview with Digital Spy and other press, she said: "Because I've been doing this a long time, you really get bored of playing 'the wife' or 'the girlfriend', and being like, 'Are you OK?' and 'Oh no, honey'.
"When I read the first and second script, even though they were great, I was like, 'I don't really…'," implying that its first few episodes hadn't quite convinced her to sign up for the gig.
Thankfully though, it all came together in the end. After being sent the rest of the scripts, Aisling said that "suddenly it turns around" and the character became much more layered – which is what she had been after.
"It's not like you need to be, in any way, a lead role, but you need some complexity, or there's something else going on," she said. "Your whole character is not just to fulfil – and especially watching consistently for all of our lives, a lot of wife and girlfriend roles who look like their life is dedicated to the moods and fulfillments of [another character]."
Of this style of storyline, she added: "You're like, 'Someone else can play that. Not for me, thanks'."
Talking about how Living with Yourself flips it around, she continued: "So with this, as soon as it came around... you see what it was, and her whole story. So that, for me, was a thing that I was like, 'Oh my God. Oh, yes please'."
Rudd agreed. "When it got to that episode, I was like, 'OK, here we go. Now it's about human beings. It's not just through one person’s point of view'.
"You're constantly discovering what you think you know, and then you see it from another person's point of view, and it takes on a different meaning. I felt that run throughout the entire show," he told us.
The Ant-Man star also described acting scenes with himself as a "unique" experience. "I'd never done anything like it. And that was really appealing," he said of his initial response to the scripts.
Prior to this, Rudd's most well-known TV character was obviously Mike in Friends. But get ready to see a completely different side to him.
Or, should we say, two different versions?
Living With Yourself is set to premiere on Netflix on Friday, October 18.
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